


Mal Vignettes #4

by wheel_pen



Series: Viridian Mal [30]
Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fish out of Water, Gen, Imprinting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-16
Updated: 2013-04-16
Packaged: 2017-12-08 16:32:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/763561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mal breaks one toy and plays with another one, and Trip gets some rest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mal Vignettes #4

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Viridians appear human, but are actually aliens who imprint on other people (Viridian or otherwise) and form a bond with them. They also live their entire life cycle in about six Earth years.
> 
> 2\. In each series, a different character is a Viridian, who was raised by mean Klingons on an outpost. An Enterprise crewmember is captured by the Klingons and they inadvertently form a bond with the Viridian, who helps them escape. Then they return to rescue the Viridian and bring them aboard the Enterprise. The Viridian homeworld is contacted and the Enterprise crew learn the Viridian will most likely die if they are sent away. So they end up staying on the Enterprise, and the crewmember has to adjust.
> 
> 3\. The bad words are censored. That’s just how I do things.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this AU. I own nothing and appreciate the chance to play in this universe.

            "Go long! Go long!"

            Mal just stood there. "What does that mean?"

            "It means, I'm going to throw it a long way," Trip explained. "So get farther back."

            "Oh, okay." Mal scrambled backwards.

            Trip heaved the object through the air with all of the precision he'd learned on his high school team. Mal waited for it, crouched on the ground, eyes flickering upwards, then suddenly he sprang, catching the object mid-air and rolling with it to the floor.

            "Good job, buddy, good catch—" Trip stopped as Mal stilled, sitting on the cargo bay deck with his back to Trip. "Hey, something wrong?" Trip jogged over just as a slight tinkling sound filled the air, and Mal started to wail. "Oh my G-d, are you hurt?"

            "I broke it!" Mal sobbed. He held his hands up to Trip, and the engineer winced at the object they contained. The furry blue rodent toy had split rather badly and was hemorrhaging the tiny polymer beads that had stuffed it.

            "Um, calm down there, buddy," Trip soothed. "It's okay. We can get the quartermaster to sew it back up and restuff it for you." He hoped.

            "But I broke it," Mal reminded him miserably. "I broke my present."

            "Well, you broke it playin' with it," Trip pointed out. "Guess it just wasn't sturdy enough for this kind of play. We'll get this fixed up, and we'll find something better to play catch with, okay?"

 

***

            "Okay, what's the big emergency?" Trip asked, meeting Archer and Phlox at the requested spot in the hallway.

            "Trip, do you even know where we are?" Archer prodded his friend.

            The engineer looked at him as if he'd lost his mind. "Right where you said to meet," he replied with irritation. There were so many more important things he could be doing in Engineering right now. "Section J12, Deck C."

            Archer paused a beat. "And what's _in_ this section, Trip?"

            Trip knew it was no use pointing out that he didn't have time to stand around playing Twenty Questions with the Captain. He had learned from experience that it was best to just humor the man, then sneak away when he was distracted by something shiny and new. "Well, there's a major EPS junction right over here," Trip answered, pointing to one side. "There's a bank of secondary relay couplers up there. And just up ahead is an access point for the environmental grid." He hadn't noticed any problems in this area of the ship, at least none that were registering in Engineering, but considering the doctor's presence he was going to guess it was an environmental problem. Maybe there was some kind of fume leak in the ventilation shaft—

            "Nothing else, Trip?" Archer prompted hopefully.

            Trip took a deep breath, calling upon his reserves of strength and patience. He had a list as long as his arm of things he needed to repair, _vital_ things, and another list as long as his leg of the marginally less important details (and Trip had fairly long legs). _All_ of which needed to be completed before the ship could safely go to warp again. And Archer wanted to stand there and quiz him on his knowledge of the ship's specs. What was he looking for? The numbers of every power node, every phase coupler, every computer panel in this section? Trip could rattle them off if he really wanted, but it would take a while. "Captain—" he began with a resigned shrug.

            "Hey," Mal piped up suddenly from behind Trip. "We live here!"

            Trip blinked a couple times, looked around again. "Oh yeah," he agreed dully. "That's a weird coin—" A suspicion began forming in his mind, confirmed when he saw the looks Archer and Phlox were giving him. "Now just hang on a minute, Captain—"

            "Trip, you've been working non-stop for more than twenty-four hours," Archer reminded him resolutely. "You need to take a break."

            "I'm fine," the engineer insisted. "I've got plenty of energy left in me, Captain. And I've got way too much to do to take a break."

            "Lt. Hess can supervise things for a few hours," Archer countered.

            Trip changed his tactic. "C'mon, Captain, just one more shift. Then I'll take a nap for an hour, promise!"

            "Oh, you're going to need far longer than a single hour, Commander Tucker," Phlox remarked. He'd been scanning Trip on the sly, the sneak. "And far sooner than in another eight hours."

            "Just gimme—six more hours," Trip tried. He was willing to negotiate it down to four. "Just so I can finish repairing the main EPS modulator—"

            Archer crossed his arms over his chest. "When's the last time you ate?" he interrupted.

            Trip shook his head, which had been emptied of such unimportant details. "It was just—uh—not that long ago."

            "And when's the last time you fed Mal?"

            "Oh, he's always chewin' on something, he's fine," Trip insisted dismissively. "He hasn't even been buggin' me about it."

            "Trip's been working very hard," Mal put in supportively.

            Archer gave him a look. "Trip's been working _too_ hard," he corrected sternly. "And now he needs to rest before he becomes a danger to himself and others."

            "Okay, four more hours—"

            " _Now_ , Trip."

            "But Captain—"

            "I don't want to make this an order, Trip." Because he was afraid Trip might disobey it.

            "Okay, fine," Trip agreed, with ill grace. "I guess I could shower, eat something, look over those reports—"

            "Sleep would be the preferable activity, Mr. Tucker, at least at first," Phlox suggested pointedly.

            "Then a shower," Mal added helpfully.

            Trip ignored him. Possibly he didn't even hear him. "Captain, I can tell you for sure I'm not gonna be able to sleep," he insisted, sounding more than a little desperate. "Not with everything I've got to do hangin' over me. So if it's all the same to you—"

            And that was when Mal punched him. It wasn't a forceful blow, more like a tap really, just enough to make Trip realize how nice it felt to close his eyes and not be quite so upright. He staggered back into the wall and started to slide down, already woozily dreaming of dancing warp cores when Mal caught him.

            Archer was staring, wide-eyed, at the dark-haired man. "He wasn't going to do what you said," Mal explained defensively. "He was going to become a danger to himself."

            "We had a sedative ready!" Archer protested, gesturing to the hypospray Phlox revealed.

            "Well I didn't know that, did I?" Mal countered, draping Trip partway over his shoulder like a giant teddy bear.

            "This method is equally effective, Captain," Phlox assured him. "In the long run it will do Commander Tucker more good than harm, I'm sure."

            Archer shook his head and keyed the entry code to Trip's quarters. Mal dragged him inside easily and gently arranged him on the bed. Phlox set the hypospray on the bedside table. "If he starts to awaken in less than two hours, you may administer this," the doctor informed Mal. "If he sleeps longer than four hours on his own, please contact me. Do you understand?"

            "Yes, Doctor," Mal nodded dutifully.

            "Well, good job, Mal," Archer conceded. "I'll be sure to tell Hess that Trip'll be gone for a while when I check on things in Engineering."

            "Unless I miss my guess, Captain," Phlox cut in lightly, "you too could use some rest."

            Archer waved him off. "Maybe later, Doctor, I just grabbed a couple hours—uh—" He couldn't quite remember when that was, actually.

            "I _do_ have a second hypospray, Captain," Phlox warned.

            Archer held up his hands defensively. "Okay, okay," he agreed quickly. "I'll go take a nap."

            "Good. And Mal? I advise you to get some rest, and some food, as well."

            "Yes, Doctor."

 

****

            Archer paused in the doorway of the cargo bay, unsure whether it was safe to proceed any further. As near as he could tell, Mal had gone insane, as evidenced by his frantic running, leaping, and crawling around the stacks of cargo and across the empty stretch of floor. All at once a small dark object shot out from between two cargo containers and Mal pounced on it, just missing as it sped away out of his grasp.

            Laughter off to the side caught Archer's attention. "Oh, you almost had it that time, buddy," Trip taunted good-naturedly, manipulating a controller in his hands. It was similar to the device Jon had used as a child to fly his toy spaceships—but, knowing Trip, likely much more complicated.

            "So here you are," Jon remarked, trying not to startle anyone.

            Trip turned to him with a pleased expression. "Hey, Captain," he greeted, then the mischievous spark went off in his eyes and Jon saw the small dark object shoot directly towards him—with Mal bounding after it.

            Archer's eyes widened and he stepped back quickly, ready to open the door to the hall and duck out. Trip pirouetted the ball in place for an instant, then zinged it away in a new direction. Mal, unable to make as sharp a turn, skidded with a thump into the wall right where Jon had been standing, then pushed himself off and continued the chase.

            "Very funny," Archer told his friend, easing back into the room. Trip just grinned.

            "Watch this," he suggested gleefully. "It's hilarious." The ball began rolling in a circle about a meter in diameter, with Mal practically falling over himself trying to follow it.

            "Well, this is better than running it through the hallways, I guess," Archer decided. Trip made the ball jump up to the top of the cargo containers again and Mal followed, occasionally losing his footing hard enough to make Jon wince in sympathy.

            "Yeah, don't know why it took me so long to think of doing it in here," Trip agreed. "He just _loves_ this. And it's good exercise for him, you know, since he doesn't like the treadmill or bikes."

            Archer watched a few moments longer. Mal's expression was intense, almost obsessive, as he scrambled after the ball. Trip was really the one who _looked_ like he was enjoying it, the grin nearly splitting his face in two. "Maybe I could borrow it sometime, try it with Porthos," Jon mused. "He could certainly use a little more exercise."

            "Um, maybe I could build you another one for Porthos," Trip countered, grimacing a little as he executed a particularly tricky move.

            Jon gave him a look. "Well, don't go to any trouble," he insisted. "I'm sure we could share."

            Trip laughed heartily as Mal tumbled off a cargo container with a thud, then popped back up and continued his pursuit. "Well, don't take this the wrong way, Jon," Trip told his friend, "but I'm pretty sure Mal wouldn't chase the ball if he knew it had dog slobber on it."

            "Dog slobber?" Jon repeated, slightly affronted.

            "Hey, I love the stuff, you know," Trip assured him distractedly. "Roll around in it if I could. But Mal's kinda persnickety that way. Remember the thing on the planet with the ball?" Archer _thought_ he knew what Trip was talking about. The engineer began throttling back on the controls. "Think that's about enough for the day, buddy," he called to Mal.

            The ball slowed, rolling towards Jon and Trip, and Archer took a nervous step to the side. Trip stopped the ball with his foot just as Mal collapsed on the floor in front of him, panting.

            "Wow, you really wore him out," Jon noted, impressed.

            "Oh, yeah," Trip agreed proudly. "That's fun, isn't it, buddy?"

            "Oh yes," Mal gasped, and he seemed sincere. "Lots." He closed his eyes and curled up around Trip's feet.

            "Looks like someone is ready for a nap," Jon commented cheerfully.

            Knowing this was the wrong thing to say, Trip shot his friend a dark look as Mal immediately started to whine. "I don't want to take a nap! I'm not tired!" Jon shrugged apologetically.

            "I didn't say we were gonna have naptime, buddy," Trip told him, crouching down to ruffle Mal's sweat-soaked hair. "We're just gonna have _quiet_ time, okay? I've got some reports in my office I want you to read."

            "Okay," Mal agreed, voice heavy with fatigue. Wearily he dragged himself to his feet, following Trip from the cargo bay. Trip turned back to give Archer a wink. Mal would be out like a light in no time.


End file.
